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1 — pink lemonade

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A/N: Because I've got an entire document full of writing prompts I've never used and half of them seem to fit into this verse I've been wanting to write. So… yay? And who doesn't love a good bro!fic?

Feedback and suggestions appreciated!

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Prompt 1: Choosing to repaint the apartment and goes to the hardware store together to pick out color swatches.

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Prompt 2: 'After I nearly burnt down my house, my garage, and most of the trees in a five-mile radius, I mostly stopped trying to light fires.'

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"I'm tellin' ya, ya halfwit, we ain't havin' pink."

"And why the hell not?"

"Because it's enough that I gotta look at your ugly mug day in an day out — I ain't havin' my place look like some girly shit—"

"Our place—"

"Who paid half our deposit, Dragneel?"

"Hell if I know how much ya paid — we split it threeways!"

"I swear damn, Dragneel, if you don't put a sock in it this instant—"

"Oh, for the love of God you two, shut the hell up!"

Natsu and Gajeel abruptly paused mid-stride, the trolley squeaking to a shrill halt as they blinked dumbly up at Gray who was stood examining Natsu's suggested shade of pink. It was somewhere between 'sorbet' and 'strawberry mousse'. Or some shit like that anyway. Whatever the hell it was, all Gray saw was pink and promptly decided that it was ugly as fuck. He sighed, heavily setting the can of paint back down on the display and glaring at the two idiots beside him.

"Honest to shit, you two had better shut the fuck up or so help me God I will do nasty things to your face whilst you sleep."

Natsu wrinkled his nose. "Dude,"

"If ya were looking to give me a reason to question yer sexuality, stripper," Gajeel said, "then that was it. Bad enough I gotta live with a known exhibitionist..." He trailed off, visibly shuddering.

Gray scowled. "I'm just sayin', there's a lotta paint about here. I got the tools to get creative."

Natsu let out a stifled sort of cackle, probably imagining all the very creative and serious artistic work he could do to his soon-to-be flatmates' sleeping faces over the coming months. Everyone knew full well that he kept a stash of permanent markers handy beneath his bed at all times should such an occasion arise. They tried not to think about it. Gray made a mental note to have a few locks put on his bedroom door before they moved in.

Grumbling, Gajeel said nothing and merely continued on, leaning heavily on the trolley as they ambled down the next aisle of the massive hardware store. There was a tense silence as they found themselves surrounded by, yes, of course, more fucking paint. As if they hadn't seen enough of the sodding stuff in the last half hour.

And still they hadn't settled on a fucking shade yet.

Gray rifled a handful of colour swatches about in front of his face and pretended to be deeply interested in a selection of blues. Gajeel glowered at him.

"Perhaps ya should get one of them fer ya bedroom," he suggested coldly. "Match yer fuckin' blue balls."

Gray waved a hand dumbly, appalled by the injustice of the statement. He stammered uselessly for a solid minute or so.

"The fuck have I done to piss you off?"

Natsu looked positively delighted. "Oh wait, hold up, I got a long-ass list for this very moment!"

"Shut up, moron!" Gray snapped before whirling back at Gajeel. "If this is about sharing the damned apartment still, you remember it ain't my fault you got kicked outta the dorms!"

Gajeel slammed a fist down onto the side of the trolley and effectively scared away every customer in the near vicinity.

"I beat the shit outta ONE asswipe and suddenly I'm a danger to society? What the fuck sorta world are we livin' in?"

"Now he was in hospital for a good month after you were through with him," Natsu added in, rubbing his chin and grinning rather too inappropriately for the subject as he remembered that oh-so epic punch-up. "Nice job, by the way,"

"Cheers, pinky,"

Gray shook his head. If he was honest, he was still just a little pissed off that he had been out of town the day of that fateful brawl.

"What did the guy even do?" He asked. Anything that warranted such blunt-force trauma from the Iron Fist had to have been either a very bold or very stupid move. From what he'd heard, Bora (or whatever his name was) was still on crutches.

Something glinted in Gajeel's eyes. Gray almost regretted asking.

"Ya mess with Juvia, ya messin' with me," — and he leaned in so close that Gray could practically feel the murderous aura burning from his very being — "ya hear that, stripper?"

He felt a chill sweep up his spine. To the side, Natsu snickered, apparently unfazed,

"Thought his balls were too blue for that."

But Gray's mind was already running wild faced with the prospect of Gajeel's stone-cold, merciless wrath... Oh God and he was going to be living with this guy—

"Why the fuck did I agree to this?" he cried, apparently unable to take it anymore and making to dramatically tear off his jacket, but Gajeel's iron grip settled itself on his shoulder before any impromptu stripping could occur. He stopped dead in the middle of the aisle, twisting the trolley sideways to block the walkway and forcibly bringing the other two to a stop with him.

"That's it!" Gajeel stood up straight, folding his arms in what he hoped was the ultimate 'tough guy', muscle man image. "Listen here, ya dicks! I ain't sure what sorta shit I've done in life to deserve this crap, but the fact is we've gotta live together for an entire god-forsaken, pissin' year, so we're layin' out some ground rules!"

Natsu and Gray both nodded. Dumb as fuck they may have been, but even they had to admit that if this was going to work in any way whatsoever, then perhaps a few Golden Rules were in order.

Not to mention that Gajeel would probably throttle them if they didn't agree.

"One—" Gajeel said, glaring at Gray pointedly, "No strippin'!"

Even Natsu cast Gray a burning look and he looked away uncomfortably. Gajeel deemed this satisfactory. He went on.

"Two — no one touches anyone's fuckin' food! I'm lookin' at you, Dragneel! If I find any of the two of yer dirty mitts on my culinary masterpieces I'll kick ya face in so hard you'll have to settle for a straw. We have a labelling system, people!"

Again, the two of them nodded. It was an unspoken rule, after all — food ownership was the strictest ownership.

"Three—" Gajeel grit his teeth. His tone became deadly low. A shadow fell across his face, piercings glinting ominously in the intrusively bright store lighting. "No fuckin' leaving Salamander alone with the stove!"

At this, Gray nodded so fiercely that he pulled a muscle in his neck. Natsu balked, indignant.

"What? Why the fuck not!"

Gajeel stared back, deadpanned. Apparently too taken by the stupidity of this comment, he was silent for a good few seconds.

"Remind me why the fuck you're even here in the first place, idiot."

Natsu opened his mouth. Then closed it again. After a moment of reflection, he muttered something unintelligible and sank back into the background, his 'sorbet to strawberry mousse' hair blending in disgustingly well with the cans on the shelves behind them. Gajeel's point was effectively made.

"Yeah, exactly, so, I repeat: this moron is not allowed to be left alone in our kitchen without explicit permission, agreed?"

Natsu grumbled, but didn't protest. Gajeel looked incredibly smug. If there was one thing he would cherish holding above Natsu's head for all time it was the infamous 'stove incident'.

The only downside to this was, of course, that it was said stove incident that had wound up with Natsu being evicted and in need of a new place to live in the first place. So here they were at the crack of dawn in the damned hardware store arguing about what colour to paint their new lounge.

"How did you even manage that?" Gray spoke up, apparently mirroring Gajeel's train of thought. "I mean, don't ovens have safety settings and shit?"

"Yeah, well— shut up."

"Jus sayin', flamebrain,"

"Ice dick."

"Does everything you touch burst into flames, or—?"

"Shut the fuck up, Gray!" Natsu almost tore his colour swatches in half. "I won't be lightin' any more fires, okay? I've mostly stopped trying,"

"Mostly?"

"Yes, mostly!" Natsu snarled at Gray, huffing and averting his gaze towards the surrounding rows upon rows of paint cans. "That good enough for ya, Princess? I ain't burning our apartment down. There. Done. Now what the fuck kinda colour are we gettin' here, anyway?"

The other two fell uneasily silent. Faced with perhaps every shade of every colour under the goddamned sun, they perhaps wondered if they should have brought one of their female friends along. Personally, none of them could even tell the slightest difference between colour tones anyway, but at least Lucy or Levy or someone would've been around to kick their sorry asses into gear.

They came to a stop aside a stand of paint cans with no less than twenty rows of truly riveting grey tones labelled all the way from 'coastal grey' to 'battleship grey' to 'steel grey's 5, 6 and 7. Absolutely sick to shit of this poncey paint job nonsense (not to mention that he was contemplating taking this entire building apart brick by brick out of frustration if he didn't escape these two idiots soon), Gajeel, fully armed with the stores entire selection of colour swatches, spread them out on the inside of the trolley and set about ending this dilemma like the alpha male he was.

(Or at least hoped to be.)

And no alpha male was gonna have a girly, pink-ass lounge.

"Aight," he said in a tone that clearly showed he was full of serious stuff; "get ya panties back in order and shut the fuck up — I'm sayin' we're goin' for 'camo green 3' and y'all ain't fuckin' stoppin' me. Dragneel, go get the greens and quit mopin' like a drama queen. Stripper, get out the dough." He paused, regarding Gray with narrowed eyes as he watched the man fumble about for his wallet. "And find a damn shirt!"

Gray took the briefest of glances down at his bare chest before shrugging lightly.

"Huh. When'd that happen?"

Gajeel's palm hit his face so hard it would probably bruise. Forget picking out a fucking paint job for their crappy new hellhole of a home (leaky plumbing and dodgy electrics and all), these idiots would kill him before the bloody apartment would.

And, as if to prove his point, Natsu (for some reason insisting on being more of a little bitch than usual today) just had to choose that precise moment to open his mouth and whine—

"Why can't it be pink?"

"Because I ain't havin' a sittin' room lookin' like a fuckin' fairy princess land! This ain't no fairy tale, ya dumbass!"

"Hey! It will be the fiercest, fieriest goddamned pink you've ever seen!"

""It will be camo green and it will be manly as fuck—"

"Ever wears green," Natsu countered, shoving the trolley aside and oh-so-narrowly avoiding the looming display of greys.

"Yeah, and she's still manlier than you, shit-for-brains!"

"Fuck that! You wanna go—?"

"BRING IT ON YA FLAMING PYROMANIAC!"

Natsu's first move was to barrel his way head-first into Gajeel's stomach, sending the two of them flying into the nearest display shelf.

And so, many shades of grey were spilt that day.

Meanwhile, Gray was too busy tearing his hair out to notice that not only his shirt, but his pants had too gone missing in the confusion.

And so contributed to their lifelong ban from the hardware store.

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